It keeps on hurting. It never stops. They keep on trying to break me but I won’t break for them. I swear I won’t cry. I’ll never cry. I may go mad but I never will cry…



“Just stay strong. We will come for you. I swear.”



The words left her lips before she realized they were to be spoken out loud. Head bowed she was solemnly aware of the brush of strands of her hair brushing against her jaw. Spade left her gaze lowered toward her feet even as the depths of ink slowly bled back to tourmaline while she looked upon the blades in her hands.



Slowly the growl died from her lips as she heard his voice pierce through the fury and hunger of the Black Dog. The effort to quell the desire to unleash the Wild Hunt was excruciating. The very effort was a pain that literally brought Sidonie to her knees as she snuffed out the last whisper and craving cry for the Hunt.



Within her there was silence near deafening from the sudden peace that consumed her. Bit by bit the sanity that seemed so distant before began to return to her as she gazed upon her hands.



His voice seemed to fill her senses, pouring through her spirit and warming her soul as she dared to lift her eyes toward him. At that moment she felt how the Fallen must have felt when judged by their Maker, or how it must feel to be before one of the Shining Ones.



“Please don’t judge me. I did what I had to do.”



A whisper. Spade felt nothing more than bespelled as the confusion and fear returned that had haunted her each and every night. The exhaustion that the Black Dog had buried within her slowly crept back and weighed down her limbs till she felt weakened by her own resolve.



For a moment she didn’t see him but one to serve as the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. This was the finality of her days. She knew it now.



The blades were sheathed silently as her hands dropped uselessly in her lap, fingers weaving and unweaving before her as she waited for her sentence.



Tell him. You have to tell him. We live. Both of us. We live. We are all alive… shouldn’t he know?



“What does it matter, child. I am already damned. This… is madness. You the insanity sinking through. I must be judged for my crimes. It is my time.”



The words were weighed not with defeat but acceptance.



Deep down Sidonie began to believe that maybe, just maybe, she really had lost her mind. After all she had to be if she was speaking to a child never born. A daughter that never knew the light of day or a breath of life. Only to know the Darkness. Nothing more, nothing less.



Just as her mother was meant to.